The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1887-07-16


walk about we'll enough to finish all
the business that Il one-legged man is
ever likely to be called upon to do. Vi
course men knew this long ago, but it
is only lately that they have taken it
into their stupid heads to imagine that
one leg is better than two, if the lie
with which they account for the loss of
the missing one is only sufficiently
skillfully constructed to be credited.
at is for this reason that have
taken to selling walking sticks and
canes. False legs won't support me
any longer. Sir Walter Scott said;
Literature is a good walking stick, but
bad crutch.' 1t was a very good
crutch for him, however, but apart
from that little inconsistency he did
not weigh his words. A walking-stick
is crutch, more's the pity and a cheap
one, too.
"Then, there are a great number Of
men who carry their love for elegant
canes into the regions of foppery, where
as the best false leg thatwas ever made
was only intended to conceal its ident-
ity, and could not be worn more grace
fully by a flop than by a pensioned
miner. Canes with silver tops with
which the market has been glutted for
the past two years, silver being cheapD
sticks so light that if the fingers grasp
ing them opened they would be apt to
fly up instead of falling down; sticks so
heavy that they seriously handicap
their owners in long walk, and would
disappoint both hound and hunter by
sinking if one of them were thrown
into a pond for water-dog to replevy;
canes with the head of the missing
link on the handles, and canes with
out any handles at all. They combine
to knock the false leg from under the
men who tell the same story, whether
they left a limb on the battlefield of
Gettysburg or in the vicinity of aPenn-
sylvania coal-mine."
Greenwood and hgnstm 0it9 make the
favorite canes for heavy men; bamboo
and malacca sticks are more in vogue
among light ones. The redwood of
British Columbia has recently come
into the market, and makes about as
heavy a stick as any wood known. 1t
has rich port-wine color, and is very
handsome. In the event of an argu-
ment, it would strike home when logic
failed, for it is as convincingly weighty
as bar of iron, and has great advan-
tage over a sword or a pistol, inasmuch
as il never misses fire, and its possessor
can't cut or pierce himself by falling
upon it in an unguarded moment
"Another objection to the artificial
leg is that man walking with one
through the snow feels the cold in his
toes, although he has no toes to feel it
in. 1t is very queer, but it is an abso-
Lutte fact. The sensation of chill re-
mains, even when three feet of iron,
wood, cork or steel spans the space be-
tween the cold earth and the sensitive
point. Whether man wears we'll
made artificial leg or an old-time wooden
peg tits very necessary that the lower
extremity of the false limb should be
well shod. A cane used in conjunction
with a common stick leg eases the
pressure on the ground, and may have
some advantages over the scientifically
made limb but it decreases our profits
enormously.
II once sold to a sportsman a leg
that was simply a gun-barrel, with a
cork in the bore. He loaded it before
he went out for a walk, and if he came
across flock of birds he Just pulled
out the stopper, leveled his limb and
fired at them. San Francisco Call.